JAFFE

JAFFE, family of Hebrew printers in *Lublin in the 16th and 17th centuries. In 1557 KALONYMUS BEN MORDECAI JAFFE (d. c. 1603) was associated with *Eliezer b. Isaac and other printers in the production of a Pentateuch with haftarot and the Five Scrolls. Kalonymus was a second cousin of Mordecai *Jaffe, author of the Levushim, and married Hannah, the granddaughter of Ḥayyim *Schwartz, a well-known wandering printer. In 1559 she and her cousin Ḥayyim b. Isaac Schwarz obtained a printing privilege from Sigismund II, king of Poland. Kalonymus published two maḥzor editions, one in the German rite (1563), the other in the Polish (1568), and a Talmud edition (1559–77). When Eliezer b. Isaac and his son left Lublin for Constantinople in 1574, Kalonymus bought most of his type – Prague style borders and other decorations – and from then until his death he continued printing a great number and variety of works, apart from proceeding with the Talmud edition. He was soon assisted by his sons JOSEPH, ẒEVI HIRSCH, and ḤAYYIM. In 1578 he obtained a new privilege from King Stephen Bathory; in 1590 he acquired new type borders and decorations. When the plague broke out in Lublin in 1592, the family and staff took refuge in nearby Bistrowitz, where they printed a Passover Haggadah in 1593. Kalonymus' son Ẓevi Hirsch took up the family trade in 1604. He too issued a Talmud edition (1611–39), Samuel Edels' novellae (1617–36), and a number of other important rabbinic and nonrabbinic works. A great fire, the Chmielnicki persecutions (1648–49), and the Swedish War (1656) led to the suspension of printing activities, but in 1665 another Jaffe, SOLOMON ZALMAN (KALMANKES) of Turobin, a nephew of Kalonymus and husband of his daughter Sarah, who herself took an active part in the work, took over and continued printing, certainly until 1700, and possibly after that year. Solomon Zalman was in partnership with a certain Jacob b. Abraham and, after the latter's death, with his son Ẓevi.